A healthy lifestyle calls for a healthy diet. Easier said than done, am I right? Big chain stores may stock a plethora of products, but many of them are processed, treated with chemicals or dosed with pesticides. Yummy! Thankfully West Michigan has plenty of local health-food store options to choose from. Here are just a few.

You may know your resident servers and bartenders, but do you know who’s masterminding your favorite dishes? Revue chatted with a few local chefs about how they got started in the kitchen and what’s new on each of their menus.

When entering a coffee shop, one is welcomed by the warm and comforting aroma of richly roasted beans and fresh, brewed coffee. The cozy and aromatic atmosphere entices the senses and the first sip of an artfully crafted beverage brings the utmost satisfaction.

In anticipation of the 8th annual Grand Rapids International Wine, Beer and Food Festival, Reserve Wine & Food held a special “Meat & Greet” event on Nov. 13 to provide a little window into the type of palate-pleasing food this featured restaurant will offer festival goers.

Cygnus 27 is changing its tune with the addition of its new chef Tim Moreno. The restaurant is taking on a new flavor as it changes guards with new manager Manny Rivera and his Latin-influenced freshman chef. Formerly featuring heavily Asian-infused cuisine, Cygnus 27’s new menu has turned its attention to south of the border thanks to the Mexican heritage of Chef Moreno

It seems like everyone’s been buzzing about the new Slow’s Bar-B-Q, one of the newest additions to the Downtown Market and the second location for the Detroit-based chain. I love good ribs and brisket as much as the next red-blooded Michigan girl, so I grabbed my barbecue-loving boyfriend and headed down to the market to see what the fuss was about.

It’s a sad day, West Michigan diners. Muskegon’s quirky and comforting Mia & Grace has closed. The downtown Skeetown bistro, which featured sensational items like the Duck PB&J sandwich and beef tongue schnitzel, shut its doors in late August so owners Jamie and Jeremy Paquin can take a day off occasionally and focus on new endeavors, including their wood-fired pizza restaurant, whistle punk.

Restaurant Week Grand Rapids kicks off today and will go through Aug. 23. For information on all the festivities and events, visit restaurantweekgr.com. Meanwhile, REVUE has taken the liberty of highlighting a list of some restaurants participating this year and giving you the scoop on what you can expect. Take a gander.

A fixture on the coast of downtown Grand Haven, the Pronto Pups stand has undergone few, if any, changes since it sold its first pup 68 years ago. And second generation owner Carl Nelson is just fine with that. “We only serve one thing, so when you walk up to the window we don’t ask you what you want, we ask you how many you want,” Nelson said. “There’ll never be anything more or anything less. The system we have right now is a well-oiled machine.”

With all of the junk food served at festivals, you might need a detox. One option is juicing. For some, the words juice cleanse conjures up an image of self-inflicted suffering, sacrifice, and near-starvation. And then there’s the price tag (not cheap), and the connotation (Gwyneth-y), and the crimp it puts in your social life (goodbye bars, hello board games). I get it, but I’ve done the juice cleanse more than once and experienced positive results.